The Bake Collective

19 April 20123 Comments

Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.
Khalil Gibran

Food has always been a central to the quest of making money whether be it at a carnival, fest, restaurant or just a regular guy trying to sell his wares on the roadside. It is neither a stranger to the idea of fundraising for a noble cause such as raising funds for a church or a NGO. And somewhere in there, Charlene and me decided to pursue the idea of ‘bake sales’ to raise money, in collaboration, with the micro-lending organisation called Milaap.

As with all little outbursts of communal-driven activity nowadays, ‘The Bake Collective’ was seeded in an impromptu conversation on Facebook. Around 20th February 2012, a posting about Milaap just sparked a ‘lets have a bake sale’ , to forming a wee group(22nd February 2012), to the first bake sale and eventually, a community page which came up on 4th March 2012 (https://www.facebook.com/TheBakeCollective). This, of course, means very little if we did not have a cause to work with. So we narrowed down on this little lady called Mariyamma, who hails from Byrathi, Karnataka. She wanted to set-up her handicraft business to do the the obvious- sustain her family and eventually lead a better life.You can read up more on her cause on http://www.milaap.org/borrower/Mariyamma-

So, we set our target at INR 50,000 and got the ball rolling. Our timing was perfect- Easter was a month away and we decided to use up the weekends to hit our target. We found bakers to whip up cakes, chocolates and loads of people volunteered to help out with selling, packing, taking photographs, designing business cards, postcards and simply, just being there. We also had people sell our baked goods in their offices, to their family and friend.

Our first bake sale was held on 3rd March 2012 and you can view the yummies below. We went door to door selling and we managed to sell some on Carter Road, Bandra. You also read up information about this on the FB community page.

Chocs(Pic Credit: Kevin Pereira)

Gooey Cake (Pic Credit:Kevin Pereira)

A poster was developed post the sale to encourage people to be part of our project.

Our second bake sale was held on 24 March 2012, where we got permission to hold our sale outside St.Peters Church,Bandra. We managed to catch a lot of church-goers to contribute out.

Fruit Cake (Pic Credit:Charlene Vaz)

Our next sale was on 7th April 2012, outside St.Anne’s Church, Bandra. And our last sale was on 8th April 2012, on Easter morning, outside Mount Mary Church, Bandra.

Our basket of goodies (Pic Credit: Himanshu Rohilla)

Easter Nests (Pic Credit: Himanshu Rohilla)

Our awe-spiring venue (Pic Credit: Himanshu Rohilla)

The advertising (Pic Credit: Himanshu Rohilla)

We managed to raise upto 70k, which was simply GREAT!! It goes without saying that this would not have been possibility without the generosity of the small little online community of friends and family, and their friends and family and their friends and family….We even had a friend all the way in Australia have her own little cookout… and when I speak of generosity, I do not just speak of it in financial terms cause that was just the end goal. What I speak of is time and effort, which was given without thought but with much care and attention. It helped cross our target of 50k and because of that we were able to help not just Mariyamma, but also Shashikumar (http://www.milaap.org/borrower/Shashikumar-K-Chalawadi-) and Beerappa (http://www.milaap.org/borrower/Beerappa%20Irappa%20Kolagall) to be able to study further. This has provided us the impetus to continue this on and on…

P.S- There are way too many people to attribute credit to in this small long post, so I would recommend checking our FB community page (https://www.facebook.com/TheBakeCollective) to check out everyone involved!!